Egypt is building a new walled buffer zone more than 3 km wide along the border with Gaza, according to satellite images

(CNN) — New satellite images show Egypt is building a massive kilometre-wide buffer zone and wall along its border with southern Gaza, as fears grow over Israel’s planned ground offensive in Rafah, where half of Gaza is located. More than 100,000 people have received shelter.

Photos taken by Maxar Technologies over the past five days show that a significant portion of Egyptian territory between the road and the Gaza border has been leveled.

If the buffer zone, which extends from the end of the Gaza border to the Mediterranean Sea, is completed, it will completely surround the border complex between Egypt and Rafah.

Several cranes can be seen placing parts of the wall on the current boundary.

Additional satellite images reviewed by CNN show that bulldozers arrived at the site on February 3 and initial excavation of the buffer zone began on February 6.

Excavation has increased significantly in the last five days.

Video released by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights shows the construction of the border wall, which they claim is five meters high.

The organization, a non-governmental human rights group made up of activists, researchers and journalists, said two local contractors told them it was hired by the Egyptian military.

CNN has contacted the Egyptian government for comment on the construction of the buffer zone and wall.

The construction comes as fears grow that the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza will worsen, leading to thousands of deaths and a mass exodus of Palestinians towards the Egyptian border.

All eyes are on Rafah, on the edge of the new buffer zone, where about 1.5 million Palestinians are housed in a giant tent city.

Despite international pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated his plans for a military attack on southern Gaza City, saying it is Hamas’s “last bastion”.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN earlier this week that the military intended to create a plan that would move civilians “out of harm’s way” and separate them from Hamas militants. However, they have not yet presented their evacuation plan to the government, he told CNN on Tuesday.

The city is the last remaining refuge in Gaza for displaced Palestinians, and panic is rising as many decide whether to stay or leave ahead of a planned ground offensive. Families lacking food, water and medicine live in tents just meters from the barbed wire fence that separates them from Egypt. Most have traveled to Rafah after being displaced by war in other parts of Gaza.

Raja Musleh, the Gaza representative for the non-profit MedGlobal, currently based in Rafah, vividly described the situation in the besieged city, saying that the health workers who are still alive, “maybe still breathing, but we are dying inside.” Are.”

Musleh said, “The situation we are facing in Rafah is terrible and getting worse every day. We have no water to drink or food to eat and our health facilities are barely functioning “

A large number of countries and international organizations have called on Israel to avoid ground operations in Gaza’s most populous city, with Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, saying that “countless lives are being lost. ” The leaders of Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned Thursday that such an incursion “would be devastating.”

Egypt has already condemned Israel’s move to push Palestinians south of the enclave, suggesting it is part of a plan to expel Gazans and would lead to the end of the Palestinian issue. Egypt has once again sounded the alarm as Israel prepares its military operation in Rafah.

Egypt has begun increasing its security presence along its border with Gaza as a “precautionary” measure ahead of a possible Israeli ground action, Egyptian security officials told CNN. As part of strengthening its security, Egypt has deployed more troops and machinery to North Sinai along the border with Gaza, officials said.

A witness told CNN that checkpoints leading to the Rafah border crossing on the Egyptian side had also been reinforced with more troops and that areas around the main road were being prepared for the deployment of tanks and military machinery.

It comes as Netanyahu continues to criticize Egypt for not closing the Philadelphia Corridor, the strip of land between Egypt and Gaza and the besieged enclave’s only non-Israeli-controlled border. At a press conference on January 13, Netanyahu said that Israel would not consider the war over until it ended.

Israel has been accused of creating its own buffer zone, but within Gaza, which would effectively reduce the enclave’s borders. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a February 8 statement that the IDF was destroying Gaza buildings, which “are located within a kilometer of the fence between Israel and Gaza, and with the goal of creating a ‘buffer’ Clearing the area with. Area.'”

“Israel has not provided concrete reasons for such widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure,” Turki said.

—CNN’s Nadine Ibrahim and Sarah El Sirgany contributed to this report.